Parking Management Services Take on Infrastructure Issues

11 Jul 2016

Seattle: Home to Pay by Plate Parking

As a City Planner, you are charged with balancing many factors and considerations as your city grows or evolves. One such item you find yourself reconciling is that of how parking fits into the plans. As a Planner, you are thinking through what the quality of life will be for residents, business owners, and even visitors in your city. No matter who you are, less traffic congestion and little to no fuss over parking matters—and it matters big.

The reality is that with new residents, popular shopping and entertainment spots, or a big venue for entertainment or music comes parking battles a plenty. While knocking down buildings and putting up parking structures would solve the problem, that’s usually not feasible. Changing the existing parking management system is, however, and it could greatly alleviate the congestion.

The easier it is to find parking and ultimately depart from a spot once the reason for parking there has runs its course, the more pleasant an experience that driver and the next-up-to-park driver will be. This, again, comes back to enhanced quality of life for all manner of folks in your community.

Perks of A Pay by Plate Parking Management System

So what kinds of advantages could you expect from making the switch to a new parking system? Here’s some benefits a new, shiny pay by plate parking system can yield you:

1. How does many more parking spaces sound? Replacing many thousands single-space street meters with 500 pay by plate parking machines gave the City of Pittsburgh 500 new parking spaces.

2. Then, there’s the non-delineated parking functionality factor which, in some cases, allows motorists to use the overall time they purchased in more than one location. This means drivers can move around more freely throughout the city and park again without paying more. Everyone is a fan of convenience and flexibility.

3. As well, it’s easy for the motorist to add more time via any pay station or their mobile phone since all transactions are license plate based. While this is another convenient feature of pay by plate, extending an outing may also well mean the resident or tourist is spending more money at local restaurants and other business establishments. Surely, your city welcomes this.

All of these advantages mean improved efficiencies, which lead to more smooth vehicle turn over and decreased congestion. Watch with a smile the end of the era of creep by drivers searching or waiting for a parking spot. In all seriousness, as you evaluate how to remedy infrastructure woes, you may want to strongly consider a change regarding your current parking system. We think this change qualifies as an action item!

Check out our slide deck from IPI 2016 to learn more about transitioning to a pay by plate parking system: